Co-operation in ex-Yugoslavia

Little by little

Gradually, some recent foes are starting to work together

TEN years ago, the walled city of Dubrovnik, jewel of Croatia's Adriatic coast, was being shelled by Serb forces based across the hills in Trebinje and by ships from the harbours of nearby Montenegro. Though Dubrovnik's monuments suffered less than was at first feared, the townsfolk who cowered in basements still vividly remember their misery. Yet this month, local administrators from the regions of Dubrovnik, Trebinje—an ethnically Serb part of Bosnia—and the Montenegrin resort of Herceg-Novi, another pro-Serb stronghold, competed in assuring a seaborne conference on religion and ecology of their readiness to work with each other.

Western policymakers have been eager to weave together a network of cross-border ties that would make renewed conflict unthinkable. So are they happy? Up to a point. With some arm-twisting from Bosnia's foreign overlords, the three regions recently agreed that fire-fighting planes from Dubrovnik could swoop freely over the mountains; but a plan to enable border guards and local police to co-operate, and even to cross borders carrying guns, has been held up by Serb-Bosnian foot-dragging.

Even garbage is political: the Croats accuse the authorities of Trebinje of placing a tip too close to their territory. Officials in Herceg-Novi are angry with their counterparts in Konavle, a Croatian region near Dubrovnik, for raising charges for water that originates near Trebinje but flows through a Croat-nationalist heartland on its way to the coast. A fair price for servicing the pipes, say the Croats. Petty revenge for the war, say the hoteliers of Herceg-Novi.

Still, even in wartime, co-operation across frontiers and front lines never entirely ceased. Trebinje sent water to Dubrovnik, which provided electric power in return. And these days a handful of young people are venturing across borders to meet other youngsters whom they would have tried to kill if both had been born a few years earlier. There is hope yet.